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First Trailer For Dead Island Draws Criticism, Hollywood Interest

Parent company now in negotiations with major movie studios over film adaptation.

Publisher Deep Silver got the gaming world's attention last week with the announcement trailer for its previously little-known zombie survival-horror game. From people disturbed by its depiction of a little girl turned zombie victim to Hollywood executives anxious to get a piece of the property, everyone is talking about Dead Island.

Writing today on CNN.com, NPR's All Tech Considered contributor Omar Gallaga puts himself firmly in the Disturbed category. Despite being a gamer who admits to enjoying other gaming experiences that feature children in graphically violent settings, such as Bioshock and Dead Space, Gallaga is also a father of two girls who says he thinks the Dead Island trailer went too far.

"As much as I admire the craft of putting such a game trailer together, it's not one that I can enjoy," Gallaga writes. "The game itself may turn out to be fantastic, but the cinematic preview strikes me as exploitative and cynical, a successful marketing ploy meant to evoke shock and pity."

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Hollywood executives that were wowed by the haunting video of one family's unfortunate fate at a zombie-infested resort. According to Deep Silver's parent company, Koch Media, big name movie studios and directors alike have come calling after watching the Dead Island trailer.

"We had a couple of big-name directors come to us," Koch Media boss Malte Wagener told the LA Times. "One of the top directors in Hollywood sent a studio his link to the trailer and said he was interested in this, and the studio contacted us."

No deals have been made, Wagener said, but the company is now in talks with three or four "major players" to adapt Dead Island to film -- even though the Techland-developed game doesn't yet have a release date.

Sharkey says: Kids, particularly little girls, have been used to up the zombie-horror ante since Romero's Night of the Living Dead more than 40 years ago. It's become such a staple of the genre, the opening scene of AMC's The Walking Dead television series featured a doll-carrying little girl zombie getting shot in the head. This has all been done before, many times over in fact. Just because it's being done in a trailer for a video game shouldn't make it any different. What's your take on the Dead Island trailer?